


what's in front of you

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Chocolate, Daisy's guilt about Trip's death, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Humor, Inhumans (Marvel), Kissing, Love Confessions, Male-Female Friendship, Maveth - Freeform, Maveth using Ward's memories, Mind Control, Music, Office Makeouts, Past Relationship(s), Requited Love, Skye | Daisy Johnson's Superpowers, Talking, Unrequited Love, desk makeouts, superhero costume
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 09:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5739049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>skoulsonfest2k16 - DAY 2 · 19 January - ‘What’s in front of you’</p><p>Daisy and Coulson realize that looking away from each other was a mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what's in front of you

“Take me out,” Coulson says with a hushed breath, eyes ahead as Daisy raises her hand to them.

“Excuse me?” Lincoln shoots back.

He watches her standing in front of him, her face twisted in agony, trying to keep her powers in check as Maveth whispers in her ear.

“Zap me?” Coulson tells him, turning to look at him. “So he can’t use me. He’ll try for that.”

“Who’s got my back then?” he says, pulling on the older man’s shoulder.

“You can hold your own until backup arrives,” he manages, looking him over. “Just. She needs to make it out of here alive.”

“You’re a real coward,” Lincoln says, shaking his head.

“We only barely know what Daisy’s powers are capable of,” he pauses, turning to look at her. “Do you want to risk her losing control?”

She starts to yell in frustration, her eyes turning pleading.

“This is seriously screwed up,” Lincoln says, raising his hands defensively.

“All those Inhuman lives are at risk if he walks away with her,” Coulson warns him.

“Okay!  Okay,” Lincoln answers, turning his hand towards him.

The air crackles and Coulson falls to the ground, as Daisy releases a shockwave towards them.

“Lincoln!”

She yells out his name, and they’ve done this before.  Practiced it at the Cocoon many times.

His powers can dampen the strength of her seismic bursts.

He throws out an electrical field and pushes it at her.

"Just a little while longer," he tells himself.

 

 

 

“How are you feeling?”

Her voice is the first thing he hears when he wakes in the medbay and it’s such a relief.  
  
“Like a bug in a zapper,” he jokes, looking down at his body.  His prosthetic has been removed and his arm is in a sling.  
  
“Is Lincoln okay?” he asks, looking up at her.  
  
“We all made it out,” she says, arms resting against her thighs as she leans forward in the chair. “Then he walked. Wouldn't even say why.”  
  
He stares at her a little too long, then notices her forearms wrapped in bandages.  
  
“You okay?”  
  
“It hurts,” she answers, sitting back. “I'll live.”  
  
“I'm sorry.”

For a lot of things, but he’s not sure she wants to talk about any of it right now.  
  
“The last time I lost control,” she replies, and shifts like she’s uncomfortable, reliving a moment.  
  
“Trip.”

She puts her face against her hand as she starts to cry.  
  
“You never get over it,” she says, sitting up straight, trying to regain her composure.  
  
“No,” he says, touching the side of her face. “We'll figure something out.”  
  
She shakes her head. “I'm too dangerous.”  
  
“You're not,” he replies. “But Maveth is.”  
  
“How can you say that?” she says, standing up and pacing at the foot of the bed. “He wanted me to kill you.  I could’ve-”  
  
“I know,” he tells her, and she stops for a moment. “He was trying to hurt you. The way Ward would have.”  
  
“Make me lose control,” she says, gripping the bedframe, her knuckles going white.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
She puts her face in her hands.  
  
“Daisy. Come here,” he says, sitting further up and reaching out a hand for her.  
  
“How can you? I'm a monster,” she flinches.  “A weapon.”  
  
“You're not. I'm not afraid of you. I'll never be.”

She makes her way back to the chair beside him and sits, as he puts his hand on hers.

“This is my fault. I made a way for him to come back.”  
  
“Ward was a murderer, you shouldn't apologize for what you did. _Ever_.”  
  
“I took my eyes off of what was in front of me. Thinking somehow it would protect…”

He doesn’t want to finish it.

“I think we both did,” she says, looking down at her bandages.

 

 

 

“The collar should block out waves of any kind,” Fitz says, pointing to it with the tool in his hand.  
  
“What do you think?” Coulson asks her.  
  
“That I look like a turtle,” Daisy sighs, turning towards them.  “Or, a bad dog that won’t stop licking.”  
  
“Disgusting,” Fitz chimes in. “Oh, it's retractable. Programmed voice command, unique to you. Pick something good.”  
  
“Shields?” she shrugs.  “Oh my god, I can’t even shrug normal.”  
  
“That's boring,” Fitz mutters. “Oh well. My work's underappreciated as usual.”  
  
“How about 'humble pie'?” Daisy tosses back at him, watching him put tools back in his case.  
  
“Not very punchy, is it?” he answers, putting his hands on his hips.  
  
Daisy groans.  
  
“Give her some time to think to over,” Coulson says, giving Fitz a look as he packs up the case and leaves.

She unzips the front of the modified suit until she can get the jacket off and puts it down on the table.

“Not ideal,” he says. “At least it’s a temporary solution?”

“Yeah, to being mind-controlled,” she says, crossing her arms. “I can’t even leave the base without that thing on, can I?”

“Probably not a good idea as long as Maveth is out there,” he sighs back.

“Lincoln left because I couldn’t hurt you.”

He’s thrown off by her bringing this up now, but it’s been left unspoken between them for weeks.

“Because I could hurt you, I think.”

“In ways that he couldn’t,” she says, lowering her eyes.  “Have you thought about it any more?”

“What?” he asks her.

“What’s in front of you?”

He smiles at her, surprised again, and touches his fingers to her arm.

“I wanted to give you some time.”

“Will you tell me?” she asks. “Why?”

“Why I took my eyes off of you?” he says, letting his hand drop to his side, swallowing his nerves down.

“I thought I lost control.  That somehow, I’d caused this.  The temple.  Your parents.  Things that I could’ve prevented if I’d seen the bigger picture.”

“Instead of me,” she says, tears starting to well in her eyes.

“I was wrong,” he tells her, sliding his thumb across her cheek. “Having you in my thoughts, my feelings, got me through all of that.  Things set in motion before we got there.”

“The crystals?  It’s my fault that Maveth can build an army.”

“We stopped HYDRA from getting into the temple.  You saved the crystals from becoming a weapon meant to kill humans.”

He puts his arms around her, and hugs him against her.  It feels so familiar.

“We’ll stop Maveth, too.”

 

 

 

He’s working late, and glances over at the record player, wondering at the last time his office had music.

Getting up from the desk, he goes to look through the records, finding a King Curtis LP he hasn’t listened to since they moved into the Playground, he thinks.

Slipping it out of the sleeve, he sets it on the deck and carefully drops the needle.

Jazz music starts to bounce through the room and he heads back around his desk, sitting on the edge of it for a minute just to listen before he gets back to work.

A little voice inside tells him, for some reason, to look up.

Daisy is standing in the doorway, watching, and smiles at him, then walks into the room. 

Wearing that dark red sweater he likes.

“I’ve finished up my field report,” she says, handing over the tablet.

He takes it in hand, sets it down on his desk.

Things have settled back into a more familiar rhythm between them.  Although there are changes. 

Bobbi and Hunter have parted ways with SHIELD.  Andrew is on the mend.

But Maveth is still loose.

“I heard you had a challenging day,” he tells her.

A run in with some Inhumans with a very familiar leader, he's been told.

“It was…okay,” she says, pressing her lips into a thin line, weaving her fingers together in front of her.

He leans over and slides open the drawer to his desk and takes a bar of chocolate out he has stashed there, hands it over to her.

“I’m good,” she says, raising her hand, as he pops a piece into his mouth, and starts chewing.

He puts the chocolate back away, then takes a deep breath, and asks.

“Would you like to get out of here?”

“Here, your office, or-“  She gestures with her hand towards the door.

“Off-base,” he tells her. “For a few hours.  The world won’t fall apart.  I don’t think, anyway.”

“You are under the influence,” she teases, tipping her head at his record player.

“Then you can drive,” he says, with an amused smile.

“Don’t you have all this work to finish up?” she asks, peering around behind him to see the state of his desk.

“More interested in what’s in front of me,” he answers slyly.

“Well,” she says with a raise of her eyebrow, moving closer to him, sliding her hand along his shoulder.  “We don’t need to leave the base to get me in front of you.”

His eyes fall on her hips as she steps between his legs and then she tips his head back so she can kiss him.

“Mmm, chocolate,” she says, ending it with tugging on his lower lip with her teeth. “Not the first time I’ve thought about that.”

He arches up off the desk to meet her and tangles his hand in her hair, bringing her back with him, urging her closer with his hand low on her back.

The music is moving at a fast-tempo now, like their hands and mouths on each other.

You’re right,” he tells her, as she pushes him further back on the desk. 

“Let’s stay in.”


End file.
